Zenaan Harkness wrote:
In fact, perhaps someone can run a straw poll now "Is your fundamental principle one of Freedom or one of Utility?" Although to prevent further unnecessary flamage, a proper vote would probably be needed at some point.
You are right, except the basic difference is not Freedom vs Utilility. I do not think, the Freedom have a lot of value by itself, without any possible applicable situations. Freedom is useful, one can utilize his freedom. I think both sides can agree that having free program can be more useful than non-free. Those who think about non-free distribution and support have following arguments: 1. Users or authors (and not distributors or supporters) are responsible for what they agree to use or to produce. 2. There are more good consequences than bad consequences of the non-free distribution. 3. There are *no* bad consequences of the non-free distribution. Non-free program can be less useful in some cases. #1 is simply wrong and can be easely argued. #2 can be argued, with some efforts. #3 is so basic and fundamental, that I have no idea where to start with. -- Best regards, Sergey Spiridonov
